[Jimbuna]

The vessel in question was named after a general and not an admiral

“It was absolutely not a war crime. It was an act of war, lamentably legal.”
The above was said by the Belgrano’s captain, Hector Bonzo, in an interview two years before his death in 2009.

In addition, the captain of the Belgrano, Héctor Bonzo, has testified that the attack was legitimate (as did the Argentine government in 1994).

Though the ship was outside the 200-mile exclusion zone, both sides understood that this was no longer the limit of British action — on 23 April a message was passed via the Swiss Embassy in Buenos Aires to the Argentine government.

Argentine Rear Admiral Allara, who was in charge of the task force that the Belgrano was part of, said “After that message of 23 April, the entire South Atlantic was an operational theatre for both sides. We, as professionals, said it was just too bad that we lost the Belgrano“.

Admiral Enrique Molina Pico, head of the Argentine Navy in the 1990s, wrote in a letter to La Nación, published in the 2 May 2005 edition, that the Belgrano was part of an operation that posed a real threat to the British task force, that it was holding off for tactical reasons, and that being outside of the exclusion zone was unimportant as it was a warship on tactical mission. This is the official position of the Argentine Navy.
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/brit...-the-belgrano/